But in this case investors seem to believe the Fed maintained that low interest rate policy too long.
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Lockhart, reiterating a view he offered in a televised interview on Wednesday, said he agreed with the FOMC’s decision to delay a hike at both the September and October meetings, but that conditions have changed since then.
Base metal prices fell to multi-year lows on Thursday amid persistent worries that supply cuts are not enough to balance a global market battling weak demand in top user China.
While the October minutes reflected a stronger sense that December is the target date, they also showed a substantial level of disagreement about the path ahead.
Markets have been whipsawed this year by uncertainty over the timing of the first rate hike in almost a decade, but the odds appear to have firmed. Malaysia added 0.21 per cent and Jakarta rose 0.47 per cent. Against the greenback, the Australian dollar rose to 1.3944 from 1.4064; and the baht climbed to 35.879 from 35.985.
The “Fed Oversight Reform and Modernisation Act” would establish a formulaic benchmark to measure the result of the Fed’s monetary policy and allow the Government Accountability Office to assess the central bank’s performance relative to the rule.
They will look for cues from Fed chair Janet Yellen’s speech to The Economic Club of Washington on Dec 3, and the November USA non-farm payrolls report on Dec 4.
Ten- and 30-year Treasuries are headed for their first back-to-back weekly gains since August as the prospect that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next month and declining oil prices dimmed inflation prospects.
Data showing a fall in US initial jobless claims last week and a slight pick-up in factory activity also supported a rate hike in December.
Interest rate futures imply that there is a 68 per cent chance that the Fed will vote to tighten monetary policy when it meets in mid-December, and the two-year U.S. Treasury yield has climbed as investors begin to anticipate the move.
They were concerned about a potential loss of momentum in the economy and the associated possibility that inflaton might fail to increase as expected, which suggested the normalization process might not be warranted.
In the end, the Fed at its October 27-28 meeting left its key rate unchanged but said further progress could justify a December hike.
The main job for the FOMC next month is to convince financial markets that the pace of rate rises will be much slower than in past cycles, Citi Research economist William Lee said.
Nonetheless, the case can be made that the latest economic data emanating of the USA all point toward a rate hike, as the bench marks set by the Fed were met, and in a few cases were surpassed.
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Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics interpreted the record of the meeting as raising the likelihood of a December rate increase.
